Anne Hathaway Recounts Being Asked If She’s a “Good” or “Bad Girl” At 16
The movie star also reveals when the much-anticipated 'The Princess Diaries 3' may hit theaters.
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival proved newsworthy for Anne Hathaway, who stunned critics in her new comedic thriller and left ‘90s kids buzzing with excitement over her *potential* next project.
Coming soon to a theater near you, Eileen features Hathaway as a puzzling prison psychologist who begins a homoerotic relationship with the prison secretary. Novelist Ottessa Moshfegh, who authored the book Eileen in which the film is based on, also adapted the novel for the big screen.
Speaking with press following the film’s screening debut, Hathaway explained why joining this project was more out of an emotional necessity than anything else.
“I just remembered one of the very first questions I ever got asked when I started acting and had to do press was: Are you a good girl or a bad girl?” Hathaway told reporters, according to Variety. “I was 16. And my 16-year-old self wanted to respond with this film.”
“I thought it was an extraordinary work,” Hathaway continued. She noted the selling point was seeing that William Oldroyd had signed on to direct the film.
Oldroyd’s 2016 drama, Lady MacBeth starring Florence Pugh, was a pivotal piece of work in Hathaway’s mind.
“I saw a study of female complication that hit me really, really deep, and I felt like Will was a filmmaker that could be trusted to tell complicated stories, especially about females,” Hathaway said.
Hathaway stars alongside Thomasin McKenzie in Eileen, which is expected to be picked up by studio execs and distributed to theaters sometime later this year.
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In much lighter news, Hathaway also gave a royal update on where Princess Diaries 3 is in the development process — hold onto your tiaras, Mia Thermopolis isn’t making her grand return anytime soon.
Despite having yet signed onto the third installment in any capacity (at least to public knowledge), Hathaway told People it’s “thrilling” to “see the level of excitement for it.”
“We feel the exact same, and I know it’s probably very frustrating,” she said in reference to the nearly 20-year gap between sequels.
“It’s a process that requires patience, and so everybody should consider themselves a part of the movie business now, because this is how long it actually takes to make things,” Hathaway added.
Three months ago, Disney announced a new chapter of The Princess Diaries franchise was in the works; but there’s been no word as to whether the threequel will include Hathaway and the beloved Julie Andrews, AKA Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
Hathaway, for her part, has been seemingly on board since the get-go — and is mighty determined to get Andrews involved as well.
“If there’s any way to get Julie Andrews involved, I think we would make it work,” she previously told Entertainment Tonight. “We would go to where she was and put a green screen behind her and just make it happen.”
However, Andrews doesn’t seem to think a threequel is such a grand idea.
“I think we know that it’s probably not going to be possible,” Andrews told Access Hollywood last month. “It was talked about very shortly after [the second sequel] came out, but it’s now how many years since then? And I am that much older, and Annie the princess, or queen, is so much older. And I am not sure where it would float or run.”
Sorry Clarisse, we’re team Annie on this one. You know what they say, miracles happen once in awhile when you believe.
